Fascism always rises from times of terrible economic conditions. In America's case, one of the worst times of income inequality in the history of the modern world. The racism, sexism, and xenophobia are awful but that's what happens when stupid people don't understand why their lives suck and their ideology consists entirely of lashing out at who they get told to blame.
The South, where Huey Long was broadly popular, embraced his authoritarianism because of the Depression and because of anti-Southern sentiment. Coughlin’s fascism also partially arose out of anti-Catholic sentiment; Lindbergh’s fascism was probably related to anti-German sentiment. Roosevelt, who praised Hitler and Mussolini, is a bit harder to explain, but his supporters were probably partially motivated by a history of documented victimhood and anti-poor, anti-Southern, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic sentiment aimed at them.
This is not really that controversial, and I suspect Chinese popular support for authoritarianism is somewhat helped by anti-China sentiments.
The China comparison is apt; Chinese
indoctrination education places heavy emphasis on the "century of humiliation" and the suffering of the Chinese people during that era. This is because the CCP knows that people who view themselves as victims are more likely to feel justified in taking aggressive, extreme action against those who they see as their persecutors. Fortunately, that sort of mentality will
never take root in the United States!
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